Tuesday, December 4, 2012

One of the biggest
loopholes of using an Intel processor within a mobile device, when compared to
having an ARM processor is the consumption of power. Intel
Corporation(NASDAQ:INTC) processors conventionally use more power than competing
products resulting in shorter battery life for devices that use Intel
processors. Intel is planning on changing that with the aim of decreasing the
power consumption on its Ivy Bridge processors.

CNET
has received information from a reliable source that Intel is planning on
reducing power consumption drastically for upcoming versions of its Ivy Bridge
chip. The most powerful Ivy Bridge chips, which are available presently in the
market, consume 17 W of power. Such chips are mostly used in a number of
Windows ultrabooks and Apple’s MacBook Air.

As per reliable sources,
the upcoming version of the Ivy Bridge chip will have power consumption less
than 17 watts. The power consumption of the chip would be as low as computer
manufacturers would need it to be to implement in within tablets. Microsoft has
plans of using an Ivy Bridge Core i5 within the Surface Pro tablet ready to be
launched very soon.

The Surface Pro tablet
will implement 17 watt chip that is already available in the market and is
expected to have half the battery life of Surface RT tablet along with an ARM
processor. As of now, the downside to Intel’s line of low power consumption
chips is that their performance is exceptionally low, as compared to what the
Ivy Bridge components offer. In contrast, ARM processors that are popularly
used in mobile devices like tablets consume power normally below 2 watts.

Normally, lower the
wattage, longer the battery life and sleeker the device. While benchmark Intel
x86 chips cannot achieve a good level of power efficiency, they are
exceptionally more powerful than ARM processors. This is one of the reasons why
Microsoft chose to release two versions of its Surface tablet.